Taste of Ashes
by False1
Summary: Uh. Well it involves Connor and Lawson, and it takes place the night before "Why We Fight". One-shot fic, contains slash and at least one melodramatic phrase.


Warnings: Some slash, language.

Your first thought is that he looks totally out of place. Wrong hair, wrong clothes, wrong age. You consider your approach, there's no other option you know without thinking. It doesn't look like he dances. His fingers are tapping against the bar, but it's to a rhythm of their own. Incomprehensible to you, when you have to concentrate not to walk in time. He's staring at you, but that's okay, you realise you've been doing the same for longer, and you move towards him. Yes, in the circumstances you can move with the music, but not too much, let it be natural, turn a hip slightly, always slight, never too blatant, and you're there.

"Hi," you say, shyly, because that can be attractive until they tire of it, and lean back in the air so the hair falls away. He extends a hand, seems formal, repressed, maybe there's a story behind him, and you shake it. Cold.

"Hello," he says calmly. "Sam Lawson," he adds.

"Connor O'Connor," you reply. You respect that there is absolutely no emotion in his tone as he repeats,

"Connor O'Connor?" 

"My theory is my parents are aliens, whose research suggested that would be a good thing to call their disguised spawn. Like Ford Prefect."

"Yes, that would be an explanation," he deadpans, unless he always sounds like that, so solemn. 

"So are you, uh, waiting for someo- something?" You'd decided he just had an alert manner, but it's always best to be sure. And it's never good to remind them of anyone they might be waiting for, stupid mistake.

"Oh yes," he replies and for a moment you're illogically disappointed. "I've been waiting for something for a very long time. But I'm not in a hurry."

"You don't dance, right?" He shakes his head. You like being right.

"Not to this music," he says. You're not sure if he's insinuating anything or just stating fact, but a lascivious smile and question seems inappropriate. Suddenly the whole setting is wrong. He doesn't belong in this place, this conversation doesn't belong in this place, and your mouth is moving and sound is coming out, and that's never good when you haven't thought, but he nods anyway, looking surprised as though something had been easier than he expected, and you move towards the exit.

Colder, quieter outside, low beat issuing from inside the club like a huge heart. His hand grips your arm and pulls you into the alley, pushing back your head.

"Hey slow down a little," you babble, and God when was the last time you had to say that and your head hits the bricks and your vision blurs and that has to be why it looks like his face is changing and his hands feel like cold iron bars on your arm and forehead and his body presses against you and his cock presses into you and- Ah!

He pulls away and stands staring, shocked and appalled, emotion on his face for the first time. 

"What the fuck was that meant to be?" you shout. "That just _hurt_!"

And your hand goes to collar and comes away warm and wet, and you spit,

"You _bit_ me?"

And he seems lost, staring through you, past.

"I remember that taste," he says, and his laugh is despairing. "How could I forget?" 

And then his eyes focus on you, and you're not imagining anything, they're yellow, and he states,

"You aren't like the rest of them," and you can't focus beyond the blood, and you know you're starting to sound faintly ridiculous, but you shout anyway,

"No! The rest of them aren't bleeding from the neck you sick freak!"

"He made you. He must have done. And he must know you're here. _I_ could feel it."

"Hello? I'm bleeding here! Actually, I'm bleeding quite a bit."

"You don't know. You don't… What did he do to you?" he asks, and you stare at him, and suddenly he laughs again, louder this time so it echoes and fills your head and goes on and on and  the pain is gone and you rush forward to stop the source of that world-breaking laugh and his arm shoots out and you go flying back and there's a dumpster and the cold floor beneath you and _we've been here before_, but it isn't right, this isn't how it should have gone, the two combined, and he speaks and his voice is at once his and like you imagine the voices of demons from D&D, and he says,

"We called the wrong one the Prince of Lies," and isn't that the devil, the fallen angel that _dared do this to us, broke and shattered_ and then he smiles and there's hope in that smile and goes, kneeling and flying and turning and running, and something breaks deep inside and the new voice comes and it will never ever ever be quiet never stop never sleep and _this is how it always_

_ /would have_

_/should have _

_/must have _

_/been_

_/is._

You never see him again, but the scar on your neck stays.

AN: Yeah, so I wrote Connor/Lawson. Anyway, it's my first attempt at slash, even if that's not really the focus of it, so I'd like to extend an apology to anyone who read this and then felt the urge to tear out their eyes, throw shoes at screen, etc. Come to think of it, they probably should have done one of those for "Rain of Fire". "Our first attempt at quasi-incestuous apocalypse sex." Though by that time they'd had quasi-bestialic (Almost certainly not a word) apocalypse sex (Willow/Oz), and quasi-necrophilic apocalypse sex (Buffy/Angel), so they though they'd be okay. I should probably apologize for my apology.


End file.
